a. [a. mod.F. cadastral relating to the cadastre, as in les registres cadastraux (Littré).]
1. Of, pertaining to, or according to a cadastre; having reference to the extent, value and ownership of landed property (strictly, as a basis of distributing taxation).
1858. Gladstone, Homer, I. 567. [Darius] divided the empire by a cadastral system under provincial governors. Ibid. (1868), Juv. Mundi, xiii. The catalogue of Homer is a great attempt to construct … a cadastral account of Greece.
1886. Q. Rev., April, 395. The following statement exhibits the cadastral distribution of properties.
2. Cadastral survey: a. strictly, a survey of lands for the purposes of a cadastre; b. loosely, a survey on a scale sufficiently large to show accurately the extent and measurement of every field and other plot of land. Applied to the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain on the scale of 1/2500 or 25–344 inches to a mile. So cadastral map, plan, etc.
1861. Sel. Comm. Ho. Commons, 182. To inquire into the expediency of extending the Cadastral Survey to those portions of the United Kingdom which have been surveyed upon the scale of one inch to the mile only.
1861. A. S. Ayrton [in Parlt.] thought that the question was very much mystified by calling the survey a cadastral survey, which meant all the details relating to the tenure of land, the condition of each property, and all such matters.
1862. Toulm. Smith, in Parly. Remembrancer, Oct., 182. The newfangled phrase ‘cadastral survey’ is as foolish as it is unquestionably mischievous.
1863. Edin. Rev., CXVIII. No. 242. 379. The French term ‘cadastral’ … is now used in England to denote a survey on a large scale.
1881. J. G. Fitch, Lect. Teaching, iii. 72. A special map of the province, and a cadastral plan (ordnance map) of the commune.
1885. Smith, in Law Times, LXXIX. 400/2. The necessity of a complete cadastral survey of property in England and Wales.
1886. Blackw. Mag., Sept., 332, note. The Domesday Survey was in a sense a cadastral one: and the Ordnance Survey in its larger scale, as being the only comprehensive basis upon which a correct computation of areas and valuation of landed property for assessment of imposts is possible, may also be called ‘Cadastral.’
